WOTS: 2012 (Standard)
Way of the Sword: Year of 2012 (Standard Edition) 1.0 Introduction This book was written by ernakou. This book will teach you rules, guidelines, and concepts about swordfighting. This book contains things that everyone should know. If you’re also interested in strategies and techniques, then check out Way of the Sword Year of 2012(Strategy) This book starts with the basic level and works up to the professional level gradually. Let’s get started. 1.1 Basic forms of attack There are 3 forms of attack with a sword. Before you can do them, you’ll need to select your sword. You could click the sword picture with your mouse, but a good swordfighter uses the number keys to select their sword. Since you’re starting, you’ll want to use the WASD keys to move. The first attack is called the basic attack. To do this attack, don’t click and touch and enemy with your sword. It hardly does any damage at all, and its range is terrible. It hardly ever has a use. The second attack is called the slash. To do this attack, click once. This attack is a little better than the basic attack and has a few uses, but that will be later on. As a rule of thumb, don’t use this unless you’re using a technique that requires it. The third attack is called the lunge. To do this attack, double click with your sword. One can safely say this is by far the best form of attack. It does the most damage and has the greatest reach. If, while you use this attack, your sword goes up, put on more hats so that you can be grounded. 1.2 Mouselock, Classic and Moonwalk There are 3 basic types of control. These determine some of the attributes you will have as you swordfight. You can switch between them during combat, but that won’t be covered in this book. Before you move on, make sure you have the Mouselock option on. Go to Menu -> Game Settings -> select Mouselock Switch. The first is Mouselock. To do this, press shift and you should see a grey crosshair-like symbol in the middle of your screen, and when you move the mouse it should stay in the middle. You must also be in third person. This mode has accuracy and precision. The second is Classic. To do this, you have to be in third person and to have mouselock off. To turn it off, press shift. This mode has speed and power. The third is Moonwalk. To do this, you must be in first person. This mode prevents distracting clothing from backfiring. However, you can’t see behind you and it can be hard to know how far your sword will go. This is only a good option for distracting/ misleading clothing users (which you will learn about later) 1.3 Uppercut There are multiple ways to uppercut, but this book will only discuss one. You use uppercuts to hit opponents on higher elevations in-front of you. Obviously your sword will only have a limited range, but this is still something worth knowing. To do this, double click, and then jump immediately. 1.4 Hitting Underground There are multiple ways to hit underground, but this book will only discuss one. You use this to hit opponents stuck in a baseplate or below a baseplate within sword reach. To use the Chop, jump, single click once in midair, double click when you hit the ground and your sword should swing down below your feet. 1.5 Piking There are multiple ways to Pike, but this book will only discuss one. Piking allows you to hit opponents standing on a ceiling above you. To pike, jump and double click, which should stab upwards. 1.6 Sword Jumping There are 2 ways to sword jump. Both of these are drastically affected by your hat weight. No hats on will make these go the highest, where heavier weights may prevent these from doing anything! To use the sword jump, jump and double click to give yourself a small boost upwards. As a rule of thumb, I generally start double clicking as soon as I’ve pressed spacebar. The unequip sword jump will give you a higher boost, but could leave you vulnerable if you’re not used to it. To use this, jump and double click just like before, but this time unselect your sword right as you hear the lunge sound. 1.7 Assasination There are multiple ways to assassinate, but this book will only discuss one. To use the chop, single click once in midair, and double click when you hit the ground. So what you’ll want to do with this is to find a high ledge to jump off from to use this attack. The more hat weight you have, the higher you can use this attack from without rebounding. Your target is always going to be at a lower elevation than you. If you really like assassination, there are many cool techniques in the strategy book. 1.8 Going AFK There is only 1 way to go AFK safely, which is flying sword. This technique has many uses, such as assassination, navigation and going AFK. To use the flying sword, get two swords, press the keys for those swords at the same time until one falls out of your hands. Now, you have to double click right before the sword vanishes. When you have it, select your remaining sword to go down, and unselect to go up. The first few times you use this, don’t attempt to double click before it vanishes, but rather count how long it takes for it to disappear. It will always take the same amount of time at every place as long as you’re at the lowest walking elevation. This move only works with certain hat weights. If you have too much weight, you won’t go up at all and instead get low-grav. If you have too little weight you’ll go up and be able to go down. When you have it, you can let yourself go up when you’re AFK and you won’t have to worry about WO’s while you’re gone. 1.9 Where to practice The best place to SF is Sword Fights on the Heights Original. If everyone is seeming too easy, look around for something is either better than you or is around your skill level and friend them(so that you can find them later). 2.0 Effect Clothing Even before this section, clothing plays a decently large role in your swordfighting. If you see any techniques in this section that have gone unmentioned, they will be in the strategy book. Low hat weights increase your sword jump, can cause you to go up when lunging, increases your rebound jumps Moderate hat weights generally allow you to use flying sword, and generally allows the reverse-chop to work, and allow you to rotate faster without going up on a lunge. Heavy hat weights allow you to use the chop assassination from higher up, make you rotate slightly slower, and allow you to use ghost sword. The best hat for turning speed is the Kuddle E Koala hat, which is 10 tickets in the catalog. Some clothing can play the role of distracting or misleading the opponent. Some shirts and pants can have a pixel glitch that makes their appearance change as your area relative to them changes. Some packages will misrepresent your brick body by appearing larger or smaller than it really is. Some hats can be very distracting. The best distraction hat is the Benjamin Franklin, which varies in price. There is another important way to distract your opponent though. I can’t believe I’m going to put this down but… if you dress up as a girl some people will be distracted enough to lose. I know this from personal experience. 2.1 Win > Lose > Tie Why would losing be better than tying? Well, this only applies to training. If you’re in a fight that counts for something, then tying is a better alternative to losing, however… Tying is a bad habit, and if you lose as least you’ll know why you lost and can learn from it. Winning is obviously the best, but you want to know how to win. In other words, be methodical and learn from your mistakes. A good way to get better is to use an overall strategy. This book won’t give you any overall strategies, but you can find many in the strategy book. 2.2 The Three Rules These three guidelines are the most important things to do in advanced swordfighting. These apply to just about everyone, but some don'’t need to follow one of the rules because their strategy has a way to bypass it. If nothing else, learn these, and get them right. At the professional level these are taken for granted. Rule 1: Do not enter the attack range unless giving/ trading blows. If you get into the attack range without giving blows, then you’re already at a crippling disadvantage. Even if their back is faced to you, if you’re in the attack range you’re able to be hit if they spin around. The people who fail to do this the most are people who go around the opponent’s side. If you’re one of those people, make sure you don’t break this rule. *Attack range: The extent of your lunge attack. Rule 2: Hit all openings presented within your attack range, and do not give openings to your opponent. This is the most important rule for winning. An opening is when you’re unable to attack. This can happen when falling, jumping, tripping, landing, right after a double click. You want to focus on the double click one. After every double click, there is a reload time. It’s not easy to hit at first, but with effort you can learn to hit in that small frame of time without getting hit back. This rule also says to avoid giving openings. All you have to do to for that is to back up before your lunge ends, preventing it from getting into the attack range. Rule 3: Hit with the tip of your sword. This rule may seem similar to the first rule, but the implication is different. Technically speaking, if a player that only hits with the tip fights a player who hits with the tip and goes a little farther, the player that only uses the tip would win because they could sweep the other player when they try to advance even a little bit. So, in other words, this rule could also be “Hit only with the tip of your sword”. This applies to mouselockers/moonwalkers especially! You don’t really have to worry about it until you’re fighting highly skilled enemies. 2.3 The Rule of Lag This is a concept that applies to places with a distinguishable amount of lag. The laggier a place is, the more “past images” you will have. You cannot see past images, but they are the past versions of you in the positions you were in. If an opponent hits your past image, it will do damage to you. If your past image is holding a lunging sword that touches an enemy, the enemy will take damage. Attack strategies are actually at an advantage in laggy conditions because of this rule. If you’re not playing offense, you can set up your past images holding a lunging sword pointed at your enemy, so if they move forward they might at least be hit by your past image. 2.4 Step-Offs These are concepts related to the second rule. Using them to your advantage can get the enemy to break the second rule. They can be fun when used, but irritating when being used on you. There are 3 main types. Ledge, Hat, and Carnage A ledge step-off is when someone drops down from a brick or from a jump. Their arms will go up, exposing an opening. A hat step-off is when someone walks over a hat. Usually they’ll keep moving forwards for a moment with their hands up while exposing an opening. Using hats on the ground to your advantage is an interesting strategy, but it won’t be discussed here. A carnage step-off is when someone steps over the body of a defeated player. These used to frustrate me to no end. In a large fight, knowing how to use these to your advantage can pay off. 2.5 Enemy Control This simply means influencing the decisions of your opponent. It’s all theoretical, so it doesn’t always work as it would in theory. Pull: This allows you to get an opponent to go towards you. Pulling is easy and effective, all you have to do is move away. If you get too far away, however, you may become un-appetizing. Push: This allows you to get an opponent to move away from you. Go on an offensive and hopefully they will back off. This works best when your opponent is having an opening. It’s a lot easier to push a mouselock/ moonwalk user than a classic user. This is much harder to pull off than pulling, but if you have experience with it then it can be a handy tool to keep the opponent away without cornering yourself. Taunt: This allows you to taunt your opponent into making a mistake with one of the three rules. Another name for this is the Volley. To do it, push at your opponent when they back up to cover their opening, and then back up during your opening. This leads to a tug-of-war like fight, where the attack and retreat are switching sides during the openings of each player. Usually, after some amount of time one player will break one of the rules. Hopefully you’ve practiced them enough not to break them. However, chances are your opponent has never had that training, so they’ll be more likely to “crack”. If they break the first rule, you can hit them without being hit. If they break the second rule, you can hit them without being hit. If they break the third rule, you can defeat them without taking much damage. Block: These are powerful attacks that say “move forward and you’ll tie”. There are many ways to block, but only one will be discussed in this book. To do the waver, double click and press A, D, A, D, A, D before the lunge ends, and also remember to back up. You can use these when you’re cornered to get a tie, assuming you don’t use it prematurely. They also essentially prevent an offensive without having to back up initially. 2.6 Health Control This simply means controlling the health of both players. Heal: To do this, retreat from your opponent while you have damage. Both player’s health will go up, so this is best when you’re losing. Tie: It’s a bad habit if you do it constantly, but if you have low health it’s an option to essentially “reset” the battle. These play an important role in duels, where a score is kept. Arming: This is the lesser-known of the health control techniques, but it’s also arguably the best one. It decreases both player’s health by a small amount, making it good when you have more health. There are many ways to arm, but this book will only discuss one. To do DS False Feather Arming, double click, then immediately jump and hold DS until you’re in a safe range(aim for where the opponent’s right arm WOULD be if they were pointing their sword at you.). When using this, ONLY hit with your sword tip. As was mentioned before, low health players like to tie. You can prevent them from tying you if you use arming, assuming you have more health. This is important to know, as it can turn what would have been ties into wins. 2.7 How to Duel When you enter the pro level, people do what’s called “dueling”. You want to know this before you try to fight with pro players. Almost all duels are done with no healing (as in, the duel continues when a player respawns), and in all duels you need a certain amount of wins to win the duel. The amount is set up beforehand. For the sake of time, I have found 5 to be the best number. Ties count as 0 unless stated otherwise before the duel begins. It isn’t an official duel if the other player doesn’t accept. Note: The pros are always changing locations, so including a place to find them would be pointless. If you know the traits of the pros, you might be able to ask around SFOTH O to find who some pros are. 2.8 Etiquette with Pros If you’re new with the pros, there are some double standards you should be aware of. If you don’t follow these, things will not go well for you. I know it’s unfair that established pros don’t have to follow all of these, but that’s life. Do not attack someone who appears to be AFK, simply avoid them. Do not spawnkill unless the person you’re spawnkilling has done it to you first. Do not insult pros or argue with pros unless you’re joining in an already existing argument where at least one pro in the server is on your side. Do not attack pros who are dueling(unless they attack you for some reason). If you mouselock/moonwalk, you will be insulted, but it won’t be anything horrible unless you talk back. 2.9 Dusting yourself off Have you ever been rusty? If you’'ve been practicing specific techniques/concepts, you can undo rustiness in a lower amount of time. Simply look back at the techniques, strategies, and concepts you used and follow them methodically. When you stop relying on instinct, you have an advantage already. I’m not saying instinct is bad, it’s actually a huge plus. However, instinctive skill can be lost easily, whereas knowledge is easier to retain/regain. So relying on instinct is not a good idea in the long run. 3.0 Options Let’s say you'’ve been with the pros and done well. Let’s say you’'re a master of swordfighting. Well, what are you going to use it for? One option is called pro slaying, which is where you go around dueling famous swordfighters and keeping track of the ones you beat in official duels (I used to do this, and it can come with huge bragging rights). Another option is teaching others how to swordfight. Another option is to use your skills to benefit a group. Another option is to make new techniques and find new concepts and discoveries to improve the study of swordfighting. Whatever you do, it’s your choice. 3.1 Closing There you have it. Did you enjoy the book? I always like to have feedback on my works.